The Devil's Match (The Devil DeVere #4)(38)

In a tit-for-tat, she focused on her breathing, relaxing, taking him deeper, to the back of her throat. She teased with her tongue and suckled with her mouth, bent on driving him mad. She could feel the tension coiling in him, his release building, but then he raised her hips.

Suddenly it was his tongue, swirling, teasing, licking, and laving her mindless with pleasure. The flames lapping at her belly ignited, sending heat and moisture and mayhem through a body that had been neglected for so very long. Her body quivered, her passage ached and convulsed with the need to be filled. She tried to suppress it, to focus on his pleasure and ignore her own, yet her climax continued to grow. It is too much! She couldn’t allow him that power over her again, that mind-numbing, intoxicating pleasure that had turned her inside out and destroyed her will.

“No! Stop!” she cried out. “That was not the bargain we made. I won’t let you do it again.”

Grasping her hips, he pivoted her to face him, his expression perplexed. “You won’t let me give you pleasure?”

Diana’s heart squeezed, and her eyes burned. “Yes! No! I don’t want it. I have given you all you asked and have upheld the bargain. Why isn’t it enough? Why do you wish to take more? You have my body. Are you the devil that you must also demand my soul?”

“Why?” he replied in a gravelly voice. “Because I have a need to see, touch, and taste your reciprocal pleasure. It’s all I can offer you. Fucking is what I’m good at. It’s what I know. I am an indisputable master of it, and so it’s my gift to you—mindless, bone-melting, heart-sundering pleasure.”

“What do you mean it’s all you can offer? You speak as if you have no capacity for greater feeling.”

He laughed. “But haven’t you already implied that all of my feelings terminate in my cock?”

“You would like me to believe that, wouldn’t you? It’s a convenient excuse for you. I spoke out of resentment, but I know better now. I have seen your weak moments, Ludovic—your protectiveness, your generosity. These are proofs of underlying sentiment, even of sensibility. You are more than capable of love, yet you repress it within yourself and refuse to accept it from others.”

“Bollocks!” he exclaimed. “Is that what you really think?”

“It’s what I know.”

“All right, Diana. While we are at it, why can’t you let go? Why can’t you trust anyone?”

“You already know why. I let my guard down once in my life, only to later regret it.”

He gripped her shoulders. “I told you why I left. Why do you still refuse to understand?”

She could no longer hold in the wave of emotion. It burst from her with violence. “Because you turned my life upside down and disappeared! I never heard from you, either while you were away, or even worse, upon your return!”

“But it never could have worked between us as things were, don’t you see that? The scandal would have destroyed a woman like you. Caroline would have ensured it. That’s why I left, Diana, in hope time and distance would diminish the threat to you. Caroline wanted to use you to control me, but when I left, she could do nothing.

“I also knew I wasn’t prepared then to give you what you needed. I thought it best that you move on with your life. I wanted you to find the contentment I denied myself by leaving.”

“I found no contentment, just resignation to my misery,” she said. “And what could you possibly know about what I needed?”

“I know you much better than you think, my dear. You have a two-sided nature, one that craves to be cherished on the one hand and to be f*cked senseless on the other. The second I could easily and willingly meet, yet I suffered reservations about being able to provide the first. You know I have never believed in monogamy.”

“Yes,” she said tightly. “You have made that clear on many occasions.”

He made a frustrated sound. “Because I have seen so few true examples of it in my life. Look no further than my own originations, for God’s sake!”

“What of Ned and Annalee? And what of your own brother, Hew?” she demanded. “Do you not believe him capable of fidelity to Vesta?”

“I expect Hew will cherish his bride.”

“And I believe she will adore him in turn for all of her days. But love requires a desire to sacrifice, Ludovic. To give up purely self-indulgent pleasure in return for something deeper and more meaningful.”

“Have you ever loved before, Diana?” he asked, deftly turning the tables.

The question caught her off guard. “No,” she said softly, but then her armor came up. “I once thought perhaps I could have, but I never really had the chance to find out.”

“Is that what truly eats at you?” he asked. “Incessantly and relentlessly plagues you? Refuses to ever give you any peace?” He dug deeper. “The lost opportunity? Never knowing for certain whether you have the capacity for it or not?” He twisted the knife.

“Yes! Damn you!” she cried, feeling the brunt of his counterstrike full force.

“Damn me, indeed,” he murmured, “for I suffer the same.”

Diana was stunned by his confession. She regarded him, breathless. Speechless. Thoughtless. She searched his face long and deep, but found no trace of guile or mockery in his fathomless blue eyes.